this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Geolocation is very different when you use an omnidirectional antenna passively listening to multiple signals rather than a directional antenna connecting to a satellite for a bidirectional communication session. And all of this ignores the simple fact there are sanctions against some countries and a war going on in another. They are the seller of their antennas and could easily limit who is allowed to change the region of their antenna to work in the white-list zone. Starlink knows the exact equipment I bought from them, and they will know if I move it, and if I change ownership to another person (who actually uses it). Yes, none of this can happen without some administrative or programming work, but that's the case for many companies if they don't want to break the law.
You are all talking about “happy path” situations. Yeah, if the people involved are honest you’re absolutely right.
I’m talking about when a government funded effort, with agents in all reaches of the world, make a concerted effort to get their hands on tech, and trick that tech into working for them.
Obscufating the location of the starlink unit isn't possible. It inherently requires positioning to function at all.
Starlink uses phased array antennas for beamforming, both on the earth base station and on the satelite station. That means the antenna is very directional by using some complex math and multiple tranceivers feeding an antenna array.
That means the satelite must know where you are within like 10s of km. Otherwise it can't tell where to beam your data.
It's kinda exactly why cell towers can locate you. And why you can't avoid that.
And if that location is within Ukraine?